Toni Morrison Lectures by Professor Elizabeth Alexander
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First of two lectures
Location: Wallace Hall, 300
Date/Time: 04/24/13 at 5:30 pm - 04/24/13 at 7:00 pm
Sponsored jointly by the Center for African American Studies and Princeton University Press, the Toni Morrison Lectures will be held annually and spotlight the new and exciting work of scholars and writers who have risen to positions of prominence both in academe and in the broader world of letters.
The lectures will be published in book form by Princeton University Press and celebrate the expansive literary imagination, intellectual adventurousness and political insightfulness that characterize the writing of Toni Morrison.
Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. She has published six books of poems: The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), Antebellum Dream Book (2001), American Sublime (2005)—which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the American Library Association’s “Notable Books of the Year;” Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color—her first young adult collection, co-authored with Marilyn Nelson (2008 Connecticut Book Award), and her most recent book Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 (2010 Paterson Prize for Poetry). Her two collections of essays are The Black Interior (2004) and Power and Possibility (2007), and her play, “Diva Studies,” was produced at the Yale School of Drama. She has also composed words for musical projects with composers Elena Ruehr and Lewis Spratlan. In 2009, she composed and delivered “Praise Song for the Day” for the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Her work echoes the inflections of earlier generations as it foretells new artistic directions for her contemporaries as well as future poets. In several anthologies of American poetry, Alexander’s work concludes the twentieth century, while in others she serves as the inaugural poet for a new generation of twenty-first century voices. Her poems are included in dozens of collections and have been translated into several languages including Spanish, German, Italian, Arabic and Bengali.
Professor Alexander is also the first recipient of the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.” She is the 2007 recipient of the first Jackson Prize for Poetry, awarded by Poets and Writers. Other awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, the George Kent Award (given by Gwendolyn Brooks), and a Guggenheim fellowship. Most recently, Elizabeth Alexander was named an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winner for her lifetime achievement in poetry.
For over twenty years, Elizabeth Alexander has taught and mentored students at many colleges and universities including Haverford College, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Smith College. At the University of Chicago, she received the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the oldest and most prestigious teaching award that the University presents. In addition to her work at colleges and universities, Elizabeth Alexander has taught a number of poetry workshops. Most significantly, serving as both faculty and honorary director, Alexander has been an integral member of Cave Canem—an organization dedicated to the development and endurance of African American poetic voices. At her current institutional home, Yale University, Elizabeth Alexander is both the Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of African American Studies and the chair of the African American Studies Department. Alexander was chosen by Yale’s president Richard Levin to deliver the DeVane Lectures in Spring 2012, where she teaches a new course titled “African American Art Today.”
Category: Event
Department: Center for African American Studies